


please don't doubt my decision

by aunt_zelda



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Compulsion, Crying, Disturbing Themes, Dream Sex, Forced Orgasm, Groping, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Knives, M/M, Mind Manipulation, Rape, Stabbing, Stripping, Threats, Violence, Vivisection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:47:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26577061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aunt_zelda/pseuds/aunt_zelda
Summary: Jonathan picks up a knife and approaches the body. The movements are practiced and nearly automatic now. He readies the blade. His memory surges with thoughts of eyes teeming beneath the skin.Then Jonah reaches up and grasps Jonathan by the wrist.His eyes, his terrible eyes, snap open.All at once Jonathan remembers. He remembers everything. How every night he dreams this. How every night Jonah bedevils him. How nothing, not drink, not laudanum, not some of the experimental chemicals brewed in the basement by studious young men, has given Jonathan a peaceful slumber.
Relationships: Jonathan Fanshawe/Jonah Magnus
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17
Collections: Darkest Night 2020





	please don't doubt my decision

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reine_des_corbeaux](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reine_des_corbeaux/gifts).



> Wanted to write a treat and your letter was full of such tempting ideas! 
> 
> title from "The Dismemberment Song" by Blue Kid

Jonathan has been here before. Jonathan will be here again. 

He stands in the operating theater. The gallery is empty, but he feels the uncomfortable and now familiar sensation of being watched by unseen eyes. 

Jonah Magnus lies before him. Splayed on a slab, pale as death, uncharacteristically silent. There are ligature marks around his neck, something Jonathan can easily identify after his work with the corpses of executed murderers. 

He worries when he finds no such mark, worries at just how the body was obtained. There are rumors of desperate men who kill to provide the university with their study materials. Perhaps though it is the scientists who are desperate, for Jonathan has never gone prying into the rumors or sought to put a stop to the practice. If he’s culpable, he does not wish to discover that. 

Jonathan picks up a knife and approaches the body. The movements are practiced and nearly automatic now. He readies the blade. His memory surges with thoughts of eyes teeming beneath the skin.

Then Jonah reaches up and grasps Jonathan by the wrist.

His eyes, his terrible eyes, snap open.

All at once Jonathan remembers. He remembers everything. How every night he dreams this. How every night Jonah bedevils him. How nothing, not drink, not laudanum, not some of the experimental chemicals brewed in the basement by studious young men, has given Jonathan a peaceful slumber. 

Jonathan falls to his knees, as he always does. He scrambles back as Jonah rises from the slab, wrapped in a shroud. 

“Do you remember, Fanshawe?” Jonah asks. 

“Damn you!” Jonathan gasps out. 

“There are but three options before you: surrender, sacrifice, or self murder.”

Jonathan shakes his head, though he’s heard them before. Jonah has explained it all quite clearly. He can give himself over to Jonah. He can remove his eyes from his head. Or he can kill himself.

Jonathan dislikes all of these options. For the first, the rumors of the private gatherings between Jonah and his friends have made _that_ implication clear to Jonathan. The second and third seem rather too much like letting Jonah win. What game he is playing Jonathan hasn’t the faintest idea, but he refuses to acquiesce to the man’s strategies. 

“None of them. I chose none of them.”

“Fanshawe you cannot last. You are strong of will but eventually this shall drive you mad. I do not desire you in such a state.”

Jonathan cannot hold back his expression of disbelief. 

“You think so little of me?” the man has the audacity to sound hurt. 

“Quite the contrary,” Jonathan looks up at Jonah. “I believe that you would find the prospect simply too fascinating not to appreciate. I would be something new to study, after all.”

“Perhaps,” Jonah admits. “I prefer you cognizant though.” 

“I’m flattered.” Jonathan sneers. 

“You ought to be.” Jonah’s gaze has gone dark, his posture strange. 

This is new. This is different. 

Jonathan has no time to react before Jonah has seized him and hauled him up onto the slab. 

“Jonah!” Jonathan cries out, flailing wildly. 

“Be _still_.” Jonah snarls as he brings the knife down.

Jonathan expects to wake in bed. He does not expect to feel the knife sink into his skin and pin him in place. A horrid memory of his cousin’s macabre butterfly collection rises to his mind, delicate wings and sharp pins.

“You are intelligent in many ways, but quite foolish in others.” Jonah paces around the slab. “We could do great things together, Fanshawe. Instead you waste your talents teaching sniveling schoolboys where to find their own arse with a map.” He looms over Jonathan. There’s another knife in his hand now. 

“Oh is that how it’s to be now?” Jonathan stares resolutely at the ceiling. “Very well. I hope you do a better job of it than those schoolboys then.”

Jonah cuts Jonathan’s clothes off methodically, exposing his chest and belly and groin and legs. “I’ve made an amateur study of anatomy in my own time. I’m sure I could do at least an adequate job of exploring your insides.” He traces the blade down along Jonathan’s sternum. 

“Don’t expect me to assist you if you find yourself lost.” Jonathan sneers. 

Jonah sets aside the knife. “As threats have proved inadequate, perhaps you shall be more responsive to persuasion.” 

Jonathan flinches as Jonah reaches for him, as his cold fingers pull on Jonathan’s hair and hold him still for a kiss. Jonah’s lips aren’t gentle, they’re claiming Jonathan’s mouth for his own. Startled out of his stupor, Jonathan bites. 

Jonah recoils, blood dripping from his lower lip. With a snarl, he slaps Jonathan across the face. “I fully intend to be kind to you, Jonathan, but you are making it difficult for me to hold to that.”

“Kind? Jonah I have never once seen you demonstrate human kindness.” 

The smile that elicits in Jonah is appalling. “Then see this. Watch every moment.”

Jonathan feels a strange pull within him, compelling him to keep his eyes open and fixed on Jonah.

Jonah strokes his fingers along Jonathan’s thighs and belly. Tenderly, he runs one finger along Jonathan’s cock. 

“Jonah, Jonah please don’t,” Jonathan hisses, the pain of the knife in his shoulder flaring again.

“Relax, Jonathan.” Jonah licks his lips. “I think you shall enjoy this. I have quite the capable tongue.” 

Later, Jonathan will try to convince himself that it was the strain of keeping his eyes open that caused him to weep. Not the pain, not the humiliation, not the horrible pleasure of seeing Jonah’s lips work up and down along his length. 

Jonathan has never experienced this before. He’s heard stories of course, understands the mechanics, hoped to do such things someday with someone he loved. Jonah being the first to have him like this, the first to make him groan and plead and shiver, the first to bring him to completion, sickens Jonathan to his core. 

“You will never forget this.” Jonah says, straightening up and wiping his mouth on the shroud. “By all means, live as long as you like Jonathan, but you will always see this at night.”

“Unless I cut out my eyes?” Jonathan snaps. 

“Perhaps even then. I don’t know for certain. We could find that out together, you and I.” Jonah muses. “And now I think … it’s time for you to wake up.”

At last Jonathan blinks. When he wakes, he’s in his own bed. He’s made a mess of himself, his sleeping shift is stuck to his legs and belly. Jonathan rises and washes himself off, shuddering at the memory of Jonah’s mouth. 

The memory is not entirely repellent. That fact disturbs Jonathan more than anything else.


End file.
